This is one of my favorite months. I love the crisp days we get before the rains set in. Today was a no-excuses yardwork day, with beautiful sunshine after a morning that flirted with frost. I raked. I weeded. I clipped. I gathered in the last of the tomatoes for sauce. Mr. G borrowed the neighbors’ mower to puree my rakings, and then I mulched the plant beds. Fresh mulch is, apparently, for dogs to lie in.

I realize Lark has made infrequent appearances on the blog. Look what a leggy teenager she’s grown into:

I also photographed and mailed some new knits, but I’m going to wait until they’ve reached their recipients to show them here. Let’s just say I have a score to tally in the great annual knitting celebration that ends in -toberfest. And more.

Before and after:

I wish I came out of the bath looking and feeling so much improved! Look how even and cohesive the heavier Zwool-spun Wensleydales are:

And the twisty Romney looks much better, doesn’t it? Here’s the Cinderella yarn:

The grey Wensleydale sport from Zwool that was so scritchy and twine-ish when I knit with it feels fabulous now. It still might not be quite next-to-the-skin soft, but it would be great for a sweater that didn’t snug the neck too closely. Lois said she was washing a bunch of it up, which would make the knitting really pleasurable, too. But here’s My Preciousss:

The Stonehedge-spun yarns really didn’t need to get any lovelier, and I’d already decided that if they didn’t either disintegrate or shoot laser beams at me when wet, I was ordering a whole mess of the dark one for a sweater. Sure enough, no melting and no death rays. They bloom. They purr. They wink suggestively. I wrote Lois to make sure she had nine skeins for me. She sent me an affirmative, and invitation to visit the sheep if I find myself in the neighborhood (which is near Corvallis), and this picture:

How could I resist? I wrote Lois a thank-you note and check and walked them to the post office with a glow of good feeling. This yarn isn’t cheap: I’m paying $144 for a 38″ sweater (with a big shawl collar, mind you – I could have chosen a simpler design that would use less yarn if I were really stretching to make the purchase). But it shouldn’t be – I consider the price very fair. It’s coming from carefully tended sheep of a rare breed on a small farm that’s someone’s livelihood; the wool is beautifully and knowledgeably spun by a little mill that’s another U.S. family-owned business. Knowing its origins and knitting it myself, I’ll treasure it far more than a garment I’d pay $144 for in a store.

My first experience seeking out a local wool provider couldn’t have been more pleasant. It’s been lovely to communicate with generous Lois, who’s included some extra yarn at no cost to make sure I won’t run out. I’ve happily agreed to send her pictures of the finished sweater for her website. Those of you attending Oregon Flock & Fiber should look for the Bellwether Wool Company booth so you can check out the Wensleydale and their wool blends for yourself. Tell Lois and Linda I sent you.

I did it: I swatched every last inch of yarn on Lois Olund’s sampler card. It was Saturday; I needed a break from ten hours of throwing down (and mostly taking it on the chin as only a self-taught novice can) with InDesign to get the school’s next journal issue to print by noon tomorrow. And anyway, it doesn’t take long to knit nine yards of yarn. I got out a variety of needles and cast on.

I decided to work from bulky to fine, so I began with the 3-ply bulky Wensleydale spun by Zeilinger’s Wool. I put six stitches on my US #10.5’s. The 3-ply is an honest wool. Not soft, but beautifully balanced and pleasingly plump. If you were planning, say, a late-November moose hunt, this is what you’d want for your sweater. For the rest of us, a pair of thick, workaday mittens would be just the ticket.

When the 3-ply ran out, I brought in its little brother, the 2-ply bulky from Zwool, and traded my #10.5’s for #8’s. The stitches aren’t as plump, obviously, and it felt rough and twiny as I was knitting it, but at this firm gauge (it could take a US #9 needle), it made a nice, cohesive fabric that was softer than I would have guessed, and should improve after a bath. Again, I thought mittens and a hat, and maybe a hard-wearing outerwear sweater for crisp fall days.

Since I was proceeding by weight, next up was the Romney 2-ply by Zwool. As soon as I uncoiled it from the sample card, I imagined I’d like it. It’s more tightly spun and had a pleasing, balanced springiness just draped across my hands. But can you tell in the photo above how uneven the stitches look? Because of the high twist, the right and left “legs” of each stitch look markedly different. I like the feel of the fabric, but it’s got this earthy texture that you’d have to embrace. We’ll see if a soak helps even it out.

The next yarn — now we’re up to the white strip — was a Wensleydale-Cotswold-Coopworth blend, again spun by Zwool as a 2-ply sport/light bulky. Again, a US #9 might have been a better bet, but I went along with my #8’s to see what would happen. I could have picked this yarn out from the bunch blindfolded: it has a distinctive feel that I might describe as dry-slick. I imagine this is due to the blend of three long-stapled wools and the tight spinning: the yarn has very little halo, so there aren’t a lot of ends left free. You’d get nice stitch definition and it ought to be great for cabled projects.

The first of the Stonehedge-spun Wensleydales came next: the whites blend together in these photos but if you look closely you can see the change. Oh, the bliss of the 2-ply sport sliding across my fingers! The fiber preparation and spinning is so different between the two companies you’d never know you were knitting with the same wool. Stonehedge’s yarns are silky, soft, and lustrous. They won’t wear as hard, but the knitting is like gliding across a frozen pond in a pine forest shrouded by falling snow, and the fabric begs for next-to-the-skin wear. The longwool is almost like kid mohair in its sheen and sleek feel, which are most apparent in the natural white color. This yarn reminded me of Brooks Farm Duet, a kid mohair-wool blend I used for my Hourglass sweater. The 8’s were a bit large for it, but I wanted to see how it would drape and bloom at the loose gauge.

I changed to US #7’s when I brought in the natural brown-black version of the same yarn, and then I was really in heaven. The fabric is soft and cohesive. There’s enough heathering to provide a lot of visual depth, and the gentle luster of the Wensleydale gives it a gloss as well. This is the one I fell for: I’ll almost certainly order up enough to make Lisa Lloyd’s Amanda cardigan, because the thought of that gorgeous shawl color snugged around my neck is compelling even on an 80-degree late-summer day, and the beautiful heathering will perfectly complement the quiet texture of the checkered stitch pattern.

It was hard to come to the end of the chocolate Stonehedge-spun 2-ply sport and switch to Zwool’s interpretation of the same weight. I liked the pretty gray heather, but this was the twiniest, roughest feeling wool of them all. Again, it makes quite a nice fabric, and I suspect this could be the ugly duckling that surprises me after I wash my swatch strip, but the knitting wasn’t very pleasurable in comparison to the experience I’d just had.

But lucky me: next up was a 2-ply DK by Stonehedge. It’s quite a light DK, so I went down to US #3’s. They were metal needles this time, so I really had the skating sensation – a little too much so. I’d probably stick with wood for this yarn for a little more grab. But oh, how it flows through the fingers! Delicious.

The last wool was the Green Mountain Spinnery DK. My little coil of it looked thin and a little weedy compared to the other yarns on the card, although I favor the natural black color. I worked this on my #3’s as well, and I was impressed by the pleasing balance of the plies and the even fabric they produced: I know this is hard to achieve with a 2-ply yarn. Those Green Mountain folk know their stuff. This would make a beautiful lightweight sweater – I’d probably stick with plain stockinet, because there’s a lot of heathering and some frizzy ends that would tend to obscure any patterning. I’m also not sure I’d want it right up against my skin at the neck, so I’d imagine something with a boat neck or a large-enough V-neck that a shirt underneath could protect me from the scritchies.

Now it’s off to the bath to see what alchemy some warm water and a little Eucalan can work. Stay tuned for the results in Part II!

When I got excited about Knit Local, the recommendations for resources to check out came pouring in. One that grabbed me right away: www.oregonwool.com – a collective of Oregon fiber growers offering everything from wool and fleeces to breeding stock and handwoven rugs. I browsed the yarn listings and immediately clicked through when I spied the title, “Wensleydale and Longwool Yarns.” I contacted Lois Olund of Blakesley Creek Farm to see if she could send me a shade card, and during an exchange of emails, Lois said she now had 100% Wensleydale in natural colors (which she’s willing to dye) that aren’t on her website. I slavered, and soon a promising plump envelope came through my mail slot. Inside was this:

(Look at that irresistible sheep face! I have the card on my desk where I can look at it all day long.) And this:

Lois sends her wool to several different mills for spinning; two in Michigan and one in Vermont. The 2-ply sportweights (“sportweight” appears to mean something different than I’m used to: heavier than DK rather than lighter) by Stonehedge Fiber Mill (second and third from top left) grabbed my attention first. They’ve opted for a loose, low-twist structure, so the long, shiny fibers of the Wensleydale wool are displayed at their softest and most glistening. The other Michigan company, Zeilinger Wool Co., has gone a very different route. Their yarns (at left and lower right – some are 100% Wensleydale, some are blends, and the brown at upper left is 100% Romney) are dense and heavily twisted. They’re rougher and stiffer to the touch, but Lois says they’ll bloom when washed. They’re mostly bulkies and seem to beg for a thoroughgoing cabled project. The yarn peeking out in the extreme lower right is processed by Green Mountain Spinnery. The singles are more tightly twisted than Stonehedge’s, but they aren’t plied as tightly as Zeilinger’s. These, too, look like they’d soften and bloom. Only one way to find out, right? I only have about a yard of each, but I’m going to try to knit up some mini-swatches. I’ll show the results here in a couple of days!

I’m already thinking of that darkest Stonehedge Wensleydale as an Amanda cardigan from Lisa Lloyd’s A Fine Fleece. What would you want to knit with wools like these?